Here on Earth, Danny North is still in high school, yet he holds in his heart and mind all the stolen outselves of 13 centuries of gatemages. The Families still want to kill him if they can’t control him - and they can’t control him; he is far too powerful. On Westil, Wad is now nearly powerless - he lost everything to Danny in their struggle. Even if he can survive the revenge of his enemies, he must still somehow make peace with the Gatemage Daniel North, for when Danny took that power from Loki, he also took responsibility for the Great Gates.

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Publisher's Summary

In this sequel to The Lost Gate, best-selling author Orson Scott Card continues his fantastic tale of the mages of Westil, who live in exile on Earth.

Here on Earth, Danny North is still in high school, yet he holds in his heart and mind all the stolen outselves of 13 centuries of gatemages. The Families still want to kill him if they can’t control him - and they can’t control him; he is far too powerful.

On Westil, Wad is now nearly powerless - he lost everything to Danny in their struggle. Even if he can survive the revenge of his enemies, he must still somehow make peace with the Gatemage Daniel North, for when Danny took that power from Loki, he also took responsibility for the Great Gates. And when he comes face-to-face with the mages who call themselves Bel and Ishtoreth, he will understand just why Loki closed the gates all those centuries ago.

What the Critics Say

"Card weaves another in a chain of satisfying, teenager-pleasing fantasies…. Card has a grand old time romping around in the fields of comparative religion while letting a feud worthy of the Hatfields and the McCoys unfold, with much tongue-in-cheek humor but a touch of gore, too." (Kirkus Reviews)

"Familiarity with The Lost Gate is useful, but not essential, as Card gives readers enough background to have at least a partial understanding of the world he’s created….Defined characters and a highly imaginative story. For the author’s fans, a must-read." (Booklist)

Card manages to put together a fairly interesting structure of magic and how that creates the major conflict that drives the story. His exploration of the way magic works and the way that the characters discover it is quite interesting. His take on ancient pantheons as magic-wielding aliens come to earth is also insightful, forcing the reader to completely shift her thinking. The reader encounters plenty of unexpected actions and circumstances and that is all to the good. The book is unpredictable and that is enough to keep you listening.

The Ok:

The main character, Danny, is a retooling of the "super-powered teenager trying to lead a normal life" (as in My Secret Identity, Smallville, etc.) genre. Which goes ok, maybe even a little bit better than average with Danny's well-developed intellect, but complete ignorance of actual teenage interaction making for very appropriate awkwardness. Unfortunately, the high school friends he interacts with feel like they're made of cardboard. They seem developed only just enough that the story can move forward.

Also Wad's story line of protecting his world from incoming mages and looking for a way to get revenge on his former lover is not bad. Not great, but not bad; interesting, but haphazard. It's one notch above only existing to be the reflection of Danny's own magical discovery.

If the following things bother you, steer clear:

Rudniki should not be narrating this book. He has a less than versatile deep bass voice. This isn't particularly ideal for a coming of age novel where many of the characters are youths. Not to say that his voice is not pleasant, he just doesn't have the range to characterize teenagers and women. Rankin has a better range, but doesn't make bold characterizations.

This book bogs down around the various characters' banter. It is not witty, insightful, or entertaining. It will make you want to skip portions.

Some of the book's portrayal of teenagers is dissonant. I am not an expert on teenagers, and maybe some do think and talk the way they do in the book, but there are some things I think are a bit too out there. A teenage girl being loaded up on hormones, emotional and desirous of sex, I get. But one that needs her boyfriend's seed in her uterus and expresses it to him in those terms? The girls in the book are generally focused on procreation. Every time it comes up (often enough) you think, "seriously?"

I don't know what happened to this story. I really enjoyed The Lost Gate and anxiously awaited book 2. Unfortunately The Gate Thief was a major let down.

This book really makes me wonder if OSC skipped over his teen years because it seems like he has no idea what teenagers are like. It's not as if his characters act like adults as some bad YA authors' protagonists do, they don't really act like any human being I've ever met. It's as if an android tried to write about human emotions based off of observations alone.

Danny North is obsessed with kissing girls, but also has some weird sexual repression/female purity issues going on. It doesn't help that all the teen girls in his life are walking wombs in waiting. They don't just want to have sex, they desperately want to get pregnant. Granted I'm no expert on the sex drives of teen girls, but I've never seen a single girl act like the girls in this novel do. It's just really weird, not exactly creepy just mind bogglingly odd and not normal. I don't know if he has strong religious beliefs about sex for procreation only that forces him to phrase teen sexual desire in this manner, but it's just strange and divorced from reality. To make it worse, the story spends an inordinately large amount of time exploring these feelings. It's true teens spend an inordinately large amount of time thinking about and discussing sex/relationships, but not like this.

Aside from poor representation of teen life, the rest of the story is lack luster compared to The Lost Gate. I lost interest in caring about Danny, Wad/Loki, and their version of the universe. The story does progress well enough, and OSC still knows how to tell a story with proper pacing. I just found myself struggling even to want the good characters to succeed. There were none of the endearing shenanigans of The Lost Gate(ie the Walmart scene). They talk about Danny being a trickster, but he doesn't do anything deserving of that title.

This story wasn't a wasted credit. The setting and magic system are interesting and fresh enough to keep me entertained. However I will have to carefully read reviews of book 3 before I decide to buy it.

The book is generally good but the thing i didn't like about it is the constant talk of 16yr olds wanting babies put their stomach or wanting to avoid babies put in their stomach. It comes across as very weird and disconcerting. The other thing is that there are a few tasteless descriptions eg someone says to another you look hungrier than a Jew in a concentration camp... really?? Because this book isn't meant to be a 'dark' book some conversations between charecters are in poor taste. Other than those two complaints, the book is really easy to follow and has an exciting storyline that will keep you hooked.

I would not recommend this book unless it was on a great sale, as it was a few days ago. It is a good story, but the author gets bogged down over and over again discussing motives and inner narrative that doesn't advance the story that the book is rather tedious. The performers do a good job with the material- it would be worse reading it in paper form. It needed to be cut in half in terms of the content that is there, and more plot needs to be added. All in all, the editor dropped the ball on this book.

Would you be willing to try another book from Orson Scott Card? Why or why not?

Yes- I love a lot of his other books, from Enchantment to Ender's Game. This one is weak tea in comparison.

I grant that the first few minutes had my mouth watering to get back into this book. However, like the second book of Ruins I was left dissapointed. OSC books always have that teenage boy "moments of vulgarity." but they are usually easy to overlook. This one not so easy... I also felt like the plot really didn't go anywhere in the book, like you could skip to three and not miss much from two. OSC gives an interview at the end, talking about how hard it is to build the world and do the set up and have the plot move along at the same time. It almost felt like an apology for the book. Like I felt about Ruins, I'd probably wait to read this book until book three comes out and then read them together, for this alone didn't satisfy me like book one did.

I agree with the reviews that are put off by the infatuation of teenage pregnancy. Orson Scott Card's books often come across as a pedantically cyclical read, so when the topic get's brought up, suddenly all the teenage girls in the story are obsessed with it in the same very disturbing and stupefied way. Grabbing at men's waists and demanding men 'put their baby inside me,' was an approach my mother must have missed. It's incredibly insulting to young women that this is how their teenage interests are portrayed. Really think about your teenage experience, and try to count on one hand the number of girls in your school, who would do this, and throw themselves at boys like this.

The dialogue is all in the same kidney, this adds to the cycling feeling of the book. It could almost be one person arguing with them self. The sentence structure, word usage, lines of thought, etc. cohere so that there are some golden opportunities for OSC's brand of humor, but it's not often believable that you are listening to several people talk, just one man's interpretation of a conversation.

OSC tackles Christianity, and a lot of other religions, legends, and myths, in this book. I'm not religious, but if you are, fair warning, he reinterprets the big J into his canon. Neil Gaiman did this in American Gods, then went back and edited him out, and it probably saved him some angry readers.

Stefan Rudnicki has a super creaky deep voice, like someone is opening and shutting an old door. Emily Rankin tried to match his voice in this book, which made her voice croak and crack. And to get what they are saying, you can't just dim the volume until you can just barely hear the words. The croaking is still loud before the words fuzz out. It's okay in the short term, but after a few hours it starts to hurt. When I took my ear buds out, I couldn't hear all that well for a few days.

The storyline is original. The plot twists aren't too severe. The book ambles, but it stays pretty cut and dry sequential. It'll be great for a solid OSC fan, but it's not Ender's Game.

Would you try another book from Orson Scott Card and/or Stefan Rudnicki and Emily Rankin ?

the guy has written some amazing stories - I guess its hard to live up to your own best work - this certainly doesn't.

What could Orson Scott Card have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

He seems to be losing the plot (in every way) between his first and second books - where the characters in the second books of his two latest series, are almost starting from scratch and often very different from the development in his first books. The second installment in the Pathfinder series really is a trainwreck, this isn't that bad, but he is certainly giving us a filler after doing a good job in the first book in the mithermage series.

What about Stefan Rudnicki and Emily Rankin ’s performance did you like?

Stefan Rudnicki is a great performer - Emily is ok, and next to stefan, comes across quite weak.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Gate Thief?

This book would be 1/3 the size if you cut out the unnecessary drivel - which, considering Orson boasts about only putting in dialogue that moves the story forward, is a big let down.

Any additional comments?

Orson really needs to sit down and create the entire story arc in one go, then go and write installments that fit to the arc - he is losing the plot between instalments.

I really hope this great writer can deliver to his earlier standard and doesn't finish his writing career slowly sputtering out

This book was not equal to the first. It didn't gel quite as well for me but never the less I thoroughly enjoyed listening. I have become accustomed to the male readers voice which was less grating and that certainly helped. I see what other people are saying about the whole teen pregnancy vibe going on, it's a little weird but it doesn't take from the rest of the story of you don't fixate on it, and it certainly isn't one of the main themes so I don't see why you should. I will defiantly be listening to and reading the third and final part of this series.

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